"Obsolete," but still in use

[Wilson Gray]

I bleeve y'all done missed a impawtant change. Nowadays, it doesn't
matter, at least in my experience and what I hear from relatives,
whether the woman or the speaker be black or white. Innih ladih be
cawl "Miss [First name]" by innihbidih ales. Nothing's perfect
anywhere, of course,
but I like to give credit where credit is due: 2006 is not 1946.

The last time that a carload of white thugs drove by me shouting
"Naygah!" as they say it up here, and throwing beer on me, it was in
Boston's Kenmore Square, not in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, or
Texas.

Surprisingly enough, even back in the '50's and 60's, when I was in
the Army, it was Northern whites, not Southern whites, who pushed the
racist envelope. It was as though the Yankees told themselves that
racism was a peculiar institution of the South. Therefore, any racism
that Northeners displayed, and there was plenty, was, simply by
definition, *not* racism. OTOH, I even had a white buddy from
Pascagoulah, Mississippi. Well, he was a native of Weslaco, Texas, who
just happened to be living in Mississippi, but y'all know what I'm
saying. And there was the guy from Albany, GA, who was so cool that
his nickname among the brothuhs was "The Southern Gentleman."

-Wilson

-Wilson

On 9/20/06, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: "Obsolete," but still in use
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> > I remember "Miss [woman's first name]" as the standard way of
> > formally addressing or referring to a woman, whether black or
> > white, down home in Texas. I think that this locution is /
> > was also used by Southern whites, though not when speaking to
> > or of black women, of course.
> >
>
> Thirty years ago in Middle Tennessee, such usage was not uncommon to
> this white boy.
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

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